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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409976">Nothing Less</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unread/pseuds/Unread'>Unread</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Tuunbaq attack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:55:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23409976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unread/pseuds/Unread</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He succumbed only once to dark thoughts, in the weeks that followed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thomas Blanky/Dr Alexander McDonald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Terror Bingo (2019)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nothing Less</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For my Terror Bingo square: bare feet.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He succumbed only once to dark thoughts, in the weeks that followed.  He’d moved back into his cabin -- much to the good doctor's disapproval -- after spending near two weeks in the sick bay, unable to bear the damnable uselessness of lying abed all day and all night. At least here he had mending to do, and weather charts he could fill. His two pair of trousers would need to be altered now, too. And he’d managed fine, although Alexander had insisted on checking in on him, no matter that Thomas told him not to waste his time. </p>
<p>(They had become friends with such ease it had startled Thomas -- not even Francis had taken to him so quick, nor he to Francis. And yet he did not think Alexander’s friendliness was simply that of a kindly doctor. In fact, he knew that was not the case at all, because there was no other patient that Alexander sat and talked with for hours after his duties were done, or called by his Christian name without the appellation of ‘Mister’. There was certainly no other man Alexander looked at with such sweet openness, such quiet humour, such trusting vulnerability. It was a funny thing that a doctor should place such faith in his patient; Thomas had never much put much stock in doctors as a species before...but Alexander was of a different breed.)</p>
<p>It had been near to a fortnight since the beast had attacked him; it made no sense that he would fall into despair now, after so much time. The lads were even fashioning him a wooden leg, so he wouldn’t be doomed to using a crutch forever. And yet here he was, sitting trouserless and in his shirtsleeves on his narrow cot, staring at the air below his healing stump. At the <em>empty</em> air, which his leg should’ve filled but never would again. Thomas had never been given to fits of lowness of spirits or despair, even when he'd been stranded on Fury Beach with Sir John bloody Ross, but now he found himself overcome.<br/><br/>Thomas looked up when he heard a voice softly call his name, and saw Alexander standing in the doorway of his cabin. The doctor must have seen something uncommon in his expression, because he squeezed himself into the tiny room and drew the curtain closed behind him. They had never been quite so alone before, used as they were to the comings and goings of the sick bay, and the apparently necessary privacy startled Thomas.<br/><br/>But before he could do more than wonder at it, Alexander did a very odd, unexpected thing: he knelt at Thomas’s feet -- <em>foot</em> -- and cupped the bare calf of Thomas’s remaining right leg in one warm hand. “This,” he said, and drew his hand slowly up Thomas’s shin, pale hairs crinkling in its wake, “is not the end, Thomas.” His other hand, gentle as ever but for once not remotely doctorly in its ministrations, cupped the bandaged stump and then slid up the short journey to rest behind his knee. “You are not such a man to be broken by this.”<br/><br/>And then Alexander leant forward and kissed Thomas’s knee, only inches above the swaddled stump, causing Thomas’s heart nearly to spasm out of his chest. There had been...<em>inklings</em> of something between them, in the weeks of his healing. Thomas had at times thought it was fanciful imaginings on his part, and at other times was convinced that Alexander McDonald, the sweetest-tempered, gentlest man that Thomas had ever encountered, harboured wicked desires that matched Thomas’s own. Now it seemed, much to Thomas’s astonishment, that there had been nothing fanciful in it at all.<br/><br/>“No,” Thomas agreed, his voice hoarse. “It’s not the leg that’ll do for me.” He reached out and, giving in to an urge he’d resisted all the time living under Alexander’s proficient care, brushed his fingers through the fair, soft locks of Alexander’s hair. “Think something other than that beast has got its claws in me now.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="https://lookslikeaquentinblakedrawing.tumblr.com/">My tumblr</a> :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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